


The Only Pay Off (For Having Any Faith)

by Meduseld



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Elements more like, Fridge Logic, Immortality, Light BDSM, M/M, Supernatural Elements, They get to be together, not much though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:28:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22551022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meduseld/pseuds/Meduseld
Summary: Jaskier’s time with Geralt has changed him.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 10
Kudos: 313





	The Only Pay Off (For Having Any Faith)

“Geralt” Jaskier says in a tone that immediately puts his hackles up. “I have something to show you”.

Then he holds out his hand for the knife Geralt had grabbed straightaway, instincts honed just for this. Whatever this is.

He hands over the knife, a good, clean one, after only a moment’s hesitation.

Jaskier nods, then holds out a pale, unblemished forearm, stronger than it looks from years at the lute and a smattering of other instruments. Jaskier tends to be loyal to his passions.

There is a stutter shock of absolutely _no_ surprise when he drags it up his arm, exposing the flesh underneath and a stream of welling blood.

Nothing Geralt hasn’t seen a thousand times before. And then he does see something new.

The blood doesn’t even reach Jaskier’s wrist, too red on white, reminding him of monster slaying in the snow, when the wound closes back up.

For a moment it’s the shiny pink of a new scar and then it isn’t anything at all.

“That’s not normal—” “For a human. But I don’t think I’m human anymore” Jaskier says, voice tired, looking up at Geralt through his lashes, blue threaded with black.

He’d been offended the day Geralt had said he’d seen plenty of eyes like his before.

They’re not like Geralt’s. They’re not like Yennefer’s. That doesn’t mean they’re like anyone else’s either.

“How long?” he says, trying to keep his heartbeat steady. He would have noticed, wouldn’t he? But the idiot fact that he didn’t is staring him in the face.

Geralt has lived amongst humans for ages, but every passing year he feels he knows less about them.

“I’m not sure. It wasn’t that fast, before, it’s like it’s been coming on. A long time, though, decades” he says. To Geralt, that’s not long at all.

That’s not what he fixes on.

It’s the fact that Jaskier sounds calmer, though he hadn’t sounded upset before. Like he now knows for sure that Geralt won’t try to hurt him, to _slay_ him.

It tightens his stomach to realize he couldn’t have sworn to that, earlier, if put to the question before the test. Probably why Jaskier chose this order, instead.

There’s still something to be settled, then, before Geralt will stop thinking of the blade secretly tucked at his back, the long white stretch of Jaskier’s unguarded neck, the awareness that he’s still, loosely and with excessively poor form, holding Geralt’s knife.

He can see the glints of blood drops on the sharp edge of the blade.

“Do you-” “Hunger for the blood or flesh of the living? No. I eat what I’ve always ate. And I sleep and I breathe but. Maybe I could stop?” Jaskier says and Geralt knows exactly why Jaskier had tracked him down this time round, like he has done a thousand times over the years, to another dusty tavern and forgotten village, dotted with monsters like veins of ore.

Because he’d been thinking of doing something stupid, and he knew Geralt would stop him. He always does. He always _has_.

“Hm. Let’s hold off on that” he says, grabbing Jaskier’s wrist like he’s getting a closer look, and he is, the skin as alabaster and inviting as always. But he’s also prying the knife out of Jaskier’s loose hold. He’s perfectly trusting.

From the moment they’ve met, Jaskier placed his life in Geralt’s hands like he was tossing him a wineskin. And Geralt has cradled it too his chest, like a priceless skein of gold thread.

Apparently too closely. Because this can be no one’s fault but his.

He presses his thumb into Jaskier’s arm hard, enough to leave his fingerprint. Jaskier whines and protests, the way he always does. But he doesn’t pull away.

Geralt watches it bloom purple, then fade to green and yellow and vanish. His stomach does something complicated inside his flesh.

"After the djinn?" Geralt asks carefully. The guilt is still raw and stinging. How could he? Though some night he doesn’t know if he means the wish or getting attached in the first place

Jaskier shakes his head, staring at Geralt's hand, still loosely wrapped around his wrist. He feels as warm and soft and yielding as humans always have.

“No. It was happening by then. You remember the Countess de Stael? You had to suspect, I mean you had to know women don’t tire of me” Jaskier says with a ghost of his usual arrogant smile and Geralt lets the obvious opening to needle him pass. It isn’t what’s needed now.

“But yeah. She was aging. I...wasn’t”. There’s a lot in the small gap between the words, but that’s hardly surprising. Jaskier has always know when to wait a beat in a song.

Geralt moves his hand further up, moves the other up the back of Jaskier’s shirt. All normal, the thump of his heart, the knobs of his spine.

“Yennefer teased you about your wrinkles. In Lyria, remember?” he says, because she did.

Jaskier pulls back slightly, to give him a flat look. “I _don’t_ have any. That’s my point. I mean, it’s not like either of you would know”.

He has a point there; Geralt has trouble telling human ages by looking at them. He knows shorter tends to mean younger, and grey hair the opposite. Overall, it’s hardly helpful.

Both of them must just have assumed that Jaskier was normal, Yennefer knew he’d be easiest to hurt by attacking his vanity. She would know what humans tend to take personally.

Jaskier’s the only one Geralt spends any real amount of time with. He can’t compare.

This clumsiness, this blindness makes him taste iron. He is Jaskier’s friend. He will do what he can to help.

“Do you want to— he has to pause and swallow —hm, get rid of it?” Geralt’s voice is steady, even as his hands grow greedy under Jaskier’s shirt. It doesn’t faze him. He’s used to Geralt’s hands and mouth saying different things.

“Not really. I mean I could still die, couldn’t I? I just get to be young and handsome forever” this time his smile is close to the real thing.

“You’ve never been handsome” Geralt rumbles, rubbing their cheekbones together, the same affection he shows Roach.

Or the current Roach, which only reminds him of how unobservant he’s been. Humans don’t usually outlive that many horses.

“You’d have to get pretty hurt. Or pretty hungry, I suppose” Geralt says, feeling the pulse in Jaskier’s neck flutter against his cheek. So ordinary. So extraordinary.

“Geralt” Jaskier says, and he knows that tone. It is very, very dangerous.

“Do you remember Aedirn? That night I mean” he says, trying hard for offhand. Probably because he can feel Geralt stiffening to stone in his arms.

Of course he remembers. The blood of the incubus burning in him, spicy and sweet like cinnamon and oranges and cloves, feeling half out of his skin.

Throwing Jaskier out of their meager chambers with a fury he didn’t feel, even as his body screamed at him to pin him down, to calm the throbbing between his legs.

Throwing himself around the room like a trapped, wild thing until he exhausted himself.

“You said it was because you could hurt me” Jaskier says, measured, an incredible understatement considering how over the top melodramatic his songs are.

“I still could” Geralt says because he could, because he does, because that’s what he’s _for_.

“But not for very long” says Jaskier, slotting his tongue into Geralt’s mouth.

In the morning when they leave together, Jaskier’s strumming the chords of a new song.

**Author's Note:**

> Look I wasn't gonna say anything but [this post](https://meduseld.tumblr.com/post/190624862560/dancinbutterfly-somanyofthekids-aoida-blue) brought it up. The title is [from Fall Out Boy's _Immortals_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9PxOanFjxQ) and it's so perfect for this fic I almost named it "I try to picture me without you (but I can't)".


End file.
